


infinite and intimate

by infinitymadeimaginable



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9652238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitymadeimaginable/pseuds/infinitymadeimaginable
Summary: because hair-combing + early-stage victuuri is a beautiful thing





	

**Author's Note:**

> yuri!!! on ice cleared my skin, watered my crops, and destroyed donald trump's political career. haven't written fanfic in the longest time, but victuuri has consumed my life for the last month, and apparently isn't gonna let me go until i get writing for them...so here we go. enjoy!
> 
> (set the night after THAT beach-front discussion)

_“What do you want me to be to you? ...A boyfriend, perhaps?” _Yuuri sighs and lets his eyes slide shut as he leans back against the edge of the hot springs, his muscles only now coming properly unclenched and relaxed. It might have been his weekly day off from training, but his trip to the beach with Viktor had ended up providing more than enough stimulation for one day. Even here, in the peace and quiet of the otherwise abandoned hot springs, he refuses to feel embarrassed about what had unfolded on that beach. Because Viktor Nikiforov had sat beside him on the damp sand, and somewhere between a squawking seagull and a desolate beachfront hut, had offered Yuuri the entire world.__

It’s strange to think, that Viktor had once occupied only a distinct niche within Yuuri’s life, as his inspiration, his idol, his hero--a being superlative and untouchable, occupying a plane of existence higher than anything Yuuri himself could ever aspire to. But then Viktor had come crashing into his life with all the gentle subtlety of a hurricane-force wind, and had smashed that cherished idol into a thousand pieces. People often fear meeting their role models, for that very reason. But the simple truth of it is, Viktor, as a flesh-and-blood human being, is far more wonderful than anything Yuuri could ever have dreamed up. More flawed, more contradictory, more infuriating, more maddening, more infinite, more beautiful.

And so, when Viktor had offered to condense all that back down to a discrete label--taming himself, once again shaping himself to be a specific _thing _that Yuuri needs--he had panicked. Yuuri doesn’t want Viktor to be only one thing to him. He wants (needs) Viktor to be everything. Their lives grown together organically and irretrievably, like two knotted tree trunks fused into a single organism. Even only to himself, he is not yet ready to think about what that might exactly entail. But here, in the quiet and solitude of his bath, Yuuri can admit to himself that, when it comes to Viktor, he wants, and he wants, and he wants, so much that there is no room left for anything other than want.__

Yuuri suddenly sits bolt upright in the bath, droplets of hot water dripping off his body, back into the pool. He runs his hands back through his hair, only tangling it up further in the process, and feels his heart beating rapidly in his chest, so quickly he feels he might vibrate out of his own skin. The quiet of the bath is too loud, too suffocating, too much. After today, he knows what he wants, what he needs. And what’s more, he knows where he can find it.

It hardly even feels like his own body, honestly, as he pulls himself out of the hot springs, towels himself off, and pulls on his robe. He pulls the belt tightly around his waist, as if somehow girding himself for battle, and moving silently through the corridors of the quiet, darkened onsen, goes first to the kitchen. He brews a pot of the lovely gyokuro tea which he knows Viktor adores, and carefully assembles a small tray--teapot, two warmed cups, a few biscuits, nothing particularly fancy. Moving all the more deliberately now, trying both not to wake up his family, or to disturb the contents of the tray, he pads down the hall in search of Viktor’s room. The Katsuki family might be early sleepers, but if Yuuri is sure of one thing, it’s that Viktor will still be awake at this hour. And sure enough, when Yuuri pauses outside Viktor’s door, he can hear softly murmured Russian words--talking to Maccachin, he’s sure.

His heart is still beating dangerously fast, and his hand seems impossibly heavy as he tries to lift it to knock on Viktor’s door. He’s halfway towards talking himself out of this altogether, when suddenly, the bedroom door opens.

“Yuuri. I thought I heard you out here.” Viktor’s pronunciation of the name is as lush as ever, and he’s shirtless under the silky robe draped over his shoulders, and neither realisation helps the flush spreading its way over Yuuri’s cheeks. But Yuuri’s in too deep to run away now, so he steels himself and presses onwards.

“I thought you might like a cup of tea before bed!” he blurts out, holding the tray forward towards Viktor. “I-uh-I know I would!”

The smile that spreads over Viktor’s face is warm and angelic, defined by an emotion that even Yuuri can only define as pure happiness. As if there is nothing in this world he would rather be doing than having his evening with Maccachin interrupted by an underdressed and emotionally volatile student on his doorstep. As if his entire evening--and all the evenings preceding it--has merely been spent waiting for this very moment. “So thoughtful of you, Yuuri.” Viktor comes in as close as the tray between them will allow, his hand ghosting over Yuuri’s cheek, before he grins all the more broadly and steps back to allow the other man to enter. “Almost like a sleepover, no?”

Yuuri resolutely does not think of all Viktor’s previous offers for the two of them to sleep together, as he crosses the threshold. It’s yet another a barrier broken, another wall between them broken down. Yuuri is in Viktor’s bedroom, and it’s late at night, and he’s just gotten out of the bath, and Viktor looks like--well, Viktor, and it’s...fine. More than fine, actually. Yuuri smiles softly at the realisation. There’s a small desk in the corner of the room, and he sets the tray down there. His hands tremble only a little bit as he pours the tea, the room silent but for Maccachin’s sleepy snuffling and the sound of the liquid hitting the delicate porcelain. He can feel Viktor’s eyes locked on his back--but from behind, he cannot see the half-eager, half-incredulous way in which Viktor looks at him, as if afraid of scaring off a skittish young colt.

Because even after their conversation on the beach today, Viktor can’t believe that Yuuri--his Yuuri--is here, in his bedroom, of his own accord. He only wants to be around Yuuri, on whatever terms Yuuri is comfortable to set. Viktor is unsure of the terms of this unexpected gift--but he’s overjoyed to accept whatever Yuuri is willing to offer. 

“How was your bath?” Viktor asks softly, coming up behind Yuuri to take his cup of tea. Yuuri smells clean and fresh, his damp hair shining in the dim light of the bedroom. “I’d have joined you in the hot springs, but Yurio called just after dinner.”

(Yuuri and Viktor have been in the hot springs together plenty of times, of course Yuuri’s not blushing at the thought of it.)

Yuuri turns around, cradling his tea to his chest. “It was nice.” But it’s a night for bravery, and Viktor’s eyes are warm and soft and inviting, and so he pushes on ahead. “But I--would have liked it if you could have been there too.” He bites his lip, his teeth worriedly pulling at a bit of dead skin. Viktor wishes he could kiss him, right then and there.

“Tomorrow, then,” Viktor promises, and with a flick of his head, beckons Yuuri over to the futon. There’s nowhere else for two people to sit comfortably in the bedroom, after all. “Someone’s got to make that your hair doesn’t do--whatever it’s doing at the moment.” He gracefully sits cross-legged on the bed, then cracks a smile up at Yuuri. “If you let it dry like that, you know, it’s going to fluff out terribly by morning.”

A month ago, a week ago, a day ago, such a comment might have sent Yuuri careening down the path to anxiety. And as Yuuri takes his seat opposite Viktor on the futon, he waits for it--that sinking feeling in his chest, the cold hand of insecurity come to give his stomach a sharp twist. But it doesn’t come. Only a spreading warmth--slow and gentle and filled with contentment.

“And what if I wanted it to, hmm? Maybe I’m trying out a new signature look.” Yuuri struggles to hide his own smile around the rim of his tea-cup. “I mean, we can’t _all _have hair like yours, Viktor. Though come to think of it, maybe that’s a good thing. Looks to me like it might just be thinning on top there.”__

Viktor lets out a laugh--a high, surprised sound of incredulous disbelief. “Call me an old man however much you like, but back in my day, at least skaters respected their coaches.”

“Is that why you moved halfway around the world without telling Yakov first?” Yuuri asks slyly.

“Naturally. I was following in his footsteps as a coach, and you know what they say--imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“I think I have heard that somewhere before, yes.” Yuuri smiles again into his cup of tea; imitating Viktor Nikiforov from a distance is an artform with which he’s spent his entire life becoming familiar (though never proficient).

The room subsides into a companionable silence, broken only by the quiet sounds of intermittent sipping. Viktor keeps throwing glances at the top of Yuuri’s head, a persistent thought nagging in the back of his head. He doesn’t want to ruin what’s been gained here tonight--doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the fact that, after months of over-the-top flirtation met by innocently artless rejection, Katsuki Yuuri is here, with him, drinking tea and engaging in light-hearted conversation. The parametres and dimensions of their relationship are shifting underfoot as they sit here, and Viktor’s heart is singing at the hesitancy, the hope, the sheer newness of it all.

“I can brush it for you, you know,” he offers suddenly, trying and failing to sound casual about it. “Your hair.” If Yuuri meant what he said on the beach today, and he really only wants Viktor, warts and all, then Viktor has no business being anything other than perfectly honest with him. “I’d love to.”

“You would brush my hair?” Yuuri freezes for a second, looking at Viktor with wide-eyed, owlish surprise. There’s no way that Viktor would understand the particular intimacy attached to hair-brushing in Japanese culture, but oh _God _, this isn’t an offer he ever expected to receive from Viktor. “Don’t worry about it. I-I haven’t brought a comb with me.”__

“Nonsense. Mine will work just fine.” And then Viktor is excitedly scrambling to his feet to fetch the comb, and Yuuri is left sitting, waiting, quiet and still on the bed of the man he loves, breath hitching in the back of his throat with nerves and anticipation.

Yuuri turns his head to look at Viktor, his eyes wide and filled to the brim with an indescribable emotion as he follows the other man around the room.

“I think you ought to know. Brushing hair has a special significance, here in Japan.” His voice is so soft and small, it’s a wonder Viktor can hear him at all, even at this close proximity. “It’s very...intimate.”

“Intimate?” Viktor repeats, his brow furrowing slightly at this piece of information. He sinks onto the mattress behind Yuuri, meeting his gaze unwaveringly and willing Yuuri to explain further. He’s spent so long trying to seduce and appeal to a version of Yuuri he’d made up in his own head. But he swears he can see Yuuri’s very soul reflected in his eyes now, and it’s more riveting than any daydream fantasy he could have devised.

“It’s about...well, eros, I suppose you could say.” Yuuri finds eye contact with Viktor (nerve-wracking at the best of times) to be too much during a conversation like this, and faces forward again. “It’s something I learned in a literature class, back when I was still in school. In old poetry, a woman’s hair was an expression of her sexuality. The comb is the means by which it is tamed. And the person who wields the comb...” Yuuri fades out, his cheeks flaming with crimson and his head slightly bowed.

Viktor is quiet for a moment, thoughtful. His heart is trembling, and even if the act goes no further, this interlude already means the world to him. “Would you like me to brush your hair, Yuuri?” he finally asks, his voice low and serious. 

“Yes, Viktor.” Yuuri’s voice doesn’t quaver. “I would.”

As it turns out, Viktor is as excellent at brushing hair as he is at nearly everything else. The teeth of the comb are gentle as they run over Yuuri’s scalp, Viktor undoing the tangles and the knots with an expert hand. A sigh of contentment escapes Yuuri’s mouth, his eyes sliding shut to block out all other sensation. He wonders that he’s ever been able to feel truly relaxed (or loved, or desired, or cared for) in his life, before this moment.

He’s definitely made the right choice, Yuuri decides as he sighs again and leans further back into Viktor’s touch. He’s not interested in anything short of Viktor himself--in all his expansive, contradictory glory, both infinite and intimate.

**Author's Note:**

> the history major in me made me do a butt-ton of research about the historical erotic significance of hair (and esp. hair-combing) in japan, and i did my best to get it right, but i'm sure there's still nuances and context i'm missing out on in yuuri's explanation. kudos and comments would be lovely, please! and please come check me out on tumblr @infinitymadeimaginable <3


End file.
